Sunday, February 26, 2017

The Gadfly loves the smell of desperation in the morning -- smells almost like . . . . . ok, well maybe not Victory, but comeuppance will do for the time being.

By Greg Miller and Adam Entous February 24

The Trump administration has enlisted senior members of the intelligence community and Congressin efforts to counter news stories about Trump associates’ ties to Russia, a politically charged issue that has been under investigation by the FBI as well as lawmakers now defending the White House.

Acting at the behest of the White House, the officials made calls to news organizations last week in attempts to challenge stories about alleged contacts between members of President Trump’s campaign team and Russian intelligence operatives, U.S. officials said.

The calls were orchestrated by the White House after unsuccessful attempts by the administration to get senior FBI officials to speak with news organizations and dispute the accuracy of stories on the alleged contacts with Russia.

The White House on Friday acknowledged those interactions with the FBI but did not disclose that it then turned to other officials who agreed to do what the FBI would not — participate in White House-arranged calls with news organizations, including The Washington Post.

Wow - that is some uncannily Nixonesque shit their dear readers, if The Gadfly don't say so his self.

Now no doubt that the continued, pesky digging by media outlets in to the Drumpf-Russian influence/collusion story is bound to elicit a steady stream of Tourettes-like "Fake News" yelps from Drumpfelthinskin, but it is also becoming much clearer by the day that the truth foxes are sniffing around a bit too close to the treason hen house for shadow President Bannon's comfort. And that, most certainly, is a good thing, but it's also a dangerous thing - because a cornered rat always bares it's fangs - and Bannon and his cadre of apocalyptic disciples are an unstable bunch and who knows to what ends they will go to be martyrs for their cause. Best to tread earnestly, but softly with this cuckoo-for-cocoa-puffs bunch.

Truth be told, The Gadfly has no idea whether there is sufficient backbone by the press, the democrats and the handful of un-compromised republicans to want to clamber deeper down into the Drumpf/Putin rabbit hole in search of answers, but The Gadfly does know this -- if they do go the full monty, and they find the answers which, on the surface, appear to point to some possibly treasonous and criminal doings, then at that point the intelligence officials and the GOP'ers who have hitched their wagons to the Bannon Express, and are willingly running interference for them, the law of the land and the constitution will, and must, demand that they to be called to the carpet as accomplices.

So having said all of that - do not expect Drumpf's hard core followers to see any of this investigating stuff (although hypocritically they loved unending Benghazi investigations) as anything other than "fake news" outlets investigating "fake" accusations and publishing the results of those "fake" investigations in their "fake" media outlets. That's the nature of a cult - the cult leader is infallible and anyone questioning the cult leader is an enemy -- ergo:

WASHINGTON — President Trump turned his speech before a conservative convention into a full-throated attack on journalism Friday, saying some reporters make up unnamed sources for "fake news" and again describing them as "the enemy" of the American people.

"A few days ago I called the fake news the enemy of the people, and they are — they are the enemy of the people," Trump told the annual Conservative Political Action Conference.

Nonetheless, The Gadfly really does understand team Drumpf's furtive actions to nip the Russian influence and collusion stuff in the bud - because this is some truly serious shit here that we're talking about. But in their zeal, they are overlooking that most basic of all political lessons that have historically resulted from such efforts -- namely that the cover up of the corruption is always worse than the original crime. And that begs the question -- if they truly are innocent, why the fervor to demonize the press? Why the efforts to use U.S. intelligence staff and compliant Republican politicians as damage control operatives?

The larger point here that The Gadfly is attempting to convey, albeit in his usual convoluted way, is that the GOP is taking a 'yoooge' risk in playing the role of getaway driver in Drumpf and team's possible bank robbery -- for like any crime, the mere fact they were on the scene makes them legally just as culpable as the actual stick up perpetrators themselves.

If anything, The Gadfly believes that most of us who haven't been assimilated in to the Drumpf Borg Hive agree that it's going to be an interesting spring and summer and there ain't enough fucking popcorn in the world to keep pace with the unsettling drama that is yet to come.

Friday, February 24, 2017

(CNN)The FBI has joined an investigation to determine whether a shooting that killed one man and injured two others at a crowded bar in Kansas is a hate crime.

Adam W. Purinton, 51, allegedly opened fire Wednesday night at the bar in Olathe, killing Srinivas Kuchibhotla, 32, police said in a statement.

The victim's friend, Alok Madasani, 32, and bar patron Ian Grillot, 24, suffered injuries, authorities said. Madasani and Kuchibhotla are engineers at Garmin, and are originally from India, according to The Kansas City Star.

Purinton has been charged with one count of premeditated first-degree murder and two counts of attempted premeditated first-degree murder. His bond has been set at $2 million. It's unclear whether he's retained a lawyer or entered a plea.

The two "swarthy" complected men on the left are Garmin (GPS manufacturer) employees living and working in the United States as Avionics engineers - successful, highly educated people just doing their thing in life and pursuing their dreams. One of them is dead, the other severely wounded.

The wholesome looking white fellow on the right was a bystander in the sports bar who saw wrong being done and being a real man, stepped up and tried to do the right thing wherein his reward was a bullet to his chest.

The shooter, some gun fondling fuckhead, apparently mistook the two Garmin employees for A-Rabs (they're both from India) and decided to exercise his 2nd amendment rights to cleanse his watering hole space from the filthy heathens in his midst.

This incident is just an inkling of the kind of America Drumpf, Bannon and friends want to impose upon us all with their bigotry, their racial and religious purity bullshit and their equally bullshit nationalist/fascist authoritarianism masquerading as freedom and liberty.

Ian Grillot was the white bystander who saw the shooter racially berating the Garmin employees, and while it is unfortunate that he was unable to prevent the initial round of shots from being fired, when the shooter paused firing briefly, he jumped in and attempted to subdue the man and ended up getting shot himself which was just enough to rattle the shooter and cause him to flee the scene instead of continuing on his rampage.

Here are his words as to what happened.

This young man is The Gadfly's idea of what it means to be a true American. Someone who sees past skin color and cultural differences and realizes that we are all humans and we are all equal and deserving of being treated with respect, dignity and humanity.

And as far as The Gadfly is concerned, if anyone is in serious need of being tossed out of this country it is the Adam Purintons and their ilk. They are the ones, who emboldened by Drumpf's ascension to White House power along with his cadre of alt-right goose-steppers, are hellbent on making the pursuit of life, liberty and happiness a miserable experience for a great many Americans who simply do not share the narrow-minded, paranoid schizophrenic, apocalyptic world-view that a great many of the right wing conservatives have.

It's going to get uglier for certain. The only hope is that enough Americans of decent heart and sound mind join forces to push back on the assholes and their toxic assholery - at least long enough until Drumpf and his Russian corruption and un-Americanism gathers enough slack in the rope that he will eventually hang himself with.

Monday, February 20, 2017

So no doubt by now, most have heard that Drumpf made his way down to Florida this past weekend to escape the really hard job of Presidentin' and to get some much needed lovin' from his cult members.

The spontaneous campaign rally (wait - didn't he win?) even included a darling photo-op with some oafish goober that he dragged onstage, who in a pique of bromantic adoration gushed to the world about how he has a 6 foot cardboard cutout of dear leader Drumpf in his house, of which upon waking every day, he salutes and prays to and for (and the righties say liberalism is a mental disorder -- hoo wee).

Now - setting aside the abject creepiness of that vision, there was another moment in Drumpf's wingnut hootenanny which had a whole lot of people, including an entire European nation, doing a Scooby-Doo double take.

Observe the feeding of the red meat to the rabid rubes in their natural habitat:

Why those filthy, dastardly immigrants! How dare they make life a living hell for America's dear friends and allies in Sweden?!!

Cutting right to the punchline - of course nothing had happened in Sweden the night prior to Donny's hair-raising declaration. In fact -- oh hell -- let's hear what the Swedes themselves have to say on the matter:

No incident occurred in Sweden and the country's baffled government asked the U.S. State Department to explain.

Swedish Foreign Minister Margot Wallstrom appeared to respond to Trump on Saturday by posting on Twitter an excerpt of a speech in which she said democracy and diplomacy "require us to respect science, facts and the media."

Her predecessor was less circumspect.

"Sweden? Terror attack? What has he been smoking? Questions abound," former Foreign Minister Carl Bildt wrote on Twitter.

Other Swedes mocked Trump by posting pictures of reindeer, meatballs and people assembling IKEA furniture.

"#lastnightinsweden my son dropped his hotdog in the campfire. So sad!" Twitter user Adam Bergsveen wrote.

It's pretty fucking hilarious and yet resignedly sad when the normally stuffy Swedes are openly mocking your nation's leader. And true to form Drumpf compounded the humiliation today when he opened his stupid piehole and responded to the decorous mocking thusly:

"My statement as to what's happening in Sweden was in reference to a story that was broadcast on @FoxNews concerning immigrants & Sweden," Trump said in a tweet on Sunday.

Fox News, a U.S. channel that has been cited favorably by Trump, ran a report Friday about alleged migrant-related crime problems in the country.

A White House spokeswoman told reporters on Sunday that Trump had been referring generally to rising crime, not a specific incident in the Scandinavian country.

Ohhhh! Well that explains it -- Drumpf saw a news excerpt on Fox "News" (still, and more than ever, not a real news organization) about some guy discussing a documentary he had made that was purportedly about out of control crime afflicting poor helpless Sweden - crime allegedly being committed en masse by those aforementioned filthy, dastardly immigrants.

So - in summary - Drumpf, in an attempt to rile up and titillate a gathering of his slack-jawed goober groupies, makes a chilling claim that Sweden (a country full of very white people) was being overrun by swarthy criminal immigrants that Sweden's liberal government were letting in to their country in hordes. After the the bullshit story is exposed, Drumpf claims he was just relaying a story that he had seen on Fox "News" (still, and more than ever, not a real news organization).

Now here is where The Gadfly sees the beauty and the silver lining in this ugly cloud.

You have a totally fake President making a fake claim about another nation based on a fake documentary that he saw on a fake news channel.

Bask in the sumptuous glory of it all and once the basking is done, weep for the sorry and pitiful state of our formerly great nation.

The Gadfly quite honestly, finds it exasperating and tiresome to have to keep beating the drum on this sordid issue, but until clear and unequivocal answers are forthcoming from the Kremlin on the Potomac, somebody has to fucking do it.

This was Komrade-in-Chief just a couple of days ago:

This was Drumpf in 2014 on David Letterman's show:

. . . and the same lying asshole in an interview from 2013:

Oh - and here's a quote from one of Drumpf's sons, The Gadfly forgets their names - Uday or Qusay .. or whatever .. doesn't matter - they're interchangeable parasites - at a New York real estate conference in 2008 bragging about dear old dad's cashing in on the Russia money boom:

❝Russians make up a pretty disproportionate cross-section of a lot of our assets. We see a lot of money pouring in from Russia.❞

Between 2008 and 2016, the public record is teeming with audio, video and printed evidence that Drumpf and his organization have been deeply enmeshed with business interests in Russia. Who and what those interests are has yet to be clearly ascertained and part of the reason for that is that Drumpf tenaciously refuses to allow the release of any of his tax files which presumably could shed a lot of light about his international monetary dealings - including those in the communist nation.

Additionally, and tellingly, Drumpf, with much zeal, appears to have willingly prostrated his self at the Russian leader's feet and embraced the primary role of Vladimir Putin's preferred public Fluffer -- and for those of you who are not familiar with that term -- it's this:

And now, as pressure mounts and questions are being asked, Drumpf is conceitedly playing his Sgt. Schultz routine as pertains his Russian financial relations and relationships - and very likely for self preservation motivations.

Ultimately dear readers - you as citizens will need to decide for yourselves what exactly it is that you are going to believe about this whole sleazy, possibly treasonous, Drumpf/Russia debacle, however and not to put too fine of a point on it, that decision may or may not determine (do you want to take that chance?) whether your grandchildren and great grandchildren grow up in a society, a nation and a world that is shaped and controlled by a megalomaniac communist dictator and his bootlicking puppets or a truly free representative democracy.

Saturday, February 18, 2017

So while the media and the mainstream blogosphere are still embroiled in deep dudgeon over Drumpf's psychotic performance at his Thursday press conference, the poop flinging Orangutan-in-chief was quietly doing this bit of evil:

Now The Gadfly will be the first to admit dear readers, that he is just as fascinated as the next sentient observer at the Madness of King George spectacle of Drumpf's nascent empire.

But let us not lose sight of the reality of who the people and entities are that this man is ideologically wedded to -- Wall Street ponzi scheming hedge funders and vulture capitalists, multinational corporations, monopolistic industries, and of course, as this report shows, the corporate polluters in the fossil fuel industry.

Drumpf has every intent of being compliant to their bidding and the overturning of this stream/waterway protection rule is just the tip of the iceberg as to how he intends to be the corporatocracy's chosen instrument of destruction when it comes to allowing the robber barons to disembowel the regulatory infrastructure that presently, albeit tenuously, protects Americans and their communities from the ruinous depredations of the corporate planet poisoners and rapists.

All the more reason to keep up the pressure on the remaining legitimate media outlets to continue exposing Drumpf for the con-artist grifter and Russian sock puppet that he is with the end goal of seeing that he is either forced to resign before his term is up or be impeached and forcefully removed from his ill-gotten position of power.

Friday, February 17, 2017

So The Gadfly sat down with his morning coffee and oatmeal (hey - we geezers have learned to cherish regular bowel movements - ya know), and after popping a Xanax and awaiting it's hypnotic, salving effects to kick in, watched the replay of Drumpf's 77 minute press conference from yesterday.

And if by "press conference" you mean this...

...then that would be a most apt description of the episode (if you fail to grasp the analogy here, The Gadfly will spell it out for you - the caged, angry, shit flinging monkey is Drumpf and the children who are the targets of the shit flinging represent the press - there - get it now?)
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The Gadfly quite simply has no words that can do justice to Drumpf's unbridled level of lunacy. No really - The Gadfly is literally left speechless at the psychotic spectacle of what he viewed.

Thank gawd that the comedians are around to take some of the nightmarish edge off of what we are witnessing from Emperor Palpatrump on a daily basis. In fact - Stephen Colbert sums up yesterday's grotesque extravaganza quite befittingly:

All of which has The Gadfly defiantly stating once again that this Drumpf experiment will not end well for this country and most Americans. And once the final curtain closes on this horrendous immorality play, let us be sure to remember who it was that brought this demented scourge upon us all.

Wednesday, February 15, 2017

This fucking asshole made this speech at a time when he and other Drumpf aides were actively playing footsie with high level Russian intelligence operatives and Kremlin officials. Also during this time, Drumpf himself was taking every opportunity he could to publicly fluff up his good pal Vladimir Putin while simultaneously denigrating American leaders.

The Gadfly once again asks the question - whose side are these people on? Because there is a clear choice of loyalties here. On one side you have America and Americans - and whether you agree or disagree with the politics of whomever might be in charge at any given time, that is irrelevant - this is our country. On the other side you have the former head of the the Communist KGB who is in effect a dictator and who is known to use the power of his authoritarian state apparatus to rig elections, stifle political dissent, suppress free speech and press freedom and if anyone gets in his way, they find themselves on the end of Trumped-up criminal charges and disappeared in to a gulag cornfield somewhere in Siberia -- or they just mysteriously end up dead.

There is no fucking debate here -- Vladimir Putin and his "government" - if by government you mean paid henchmen, ratfuckers and assassins - is NOT A FRIEND to democracy or the United States of America.

Allow The Gadfly to repeat that.

Vladimir Putin and his "government" - if by government you mean paid henchmen, ratfuckers and assassins - is NOT A FRIEND to democracy or the United States of America.

Get it? Capiche?

So what are Flynn and his friends then up to having regular, off the record communications with high level Russian intelligence operatives in the run up to this past November's election? Are they discussing the weather? Maybe talking about who's going to win the Super Bowl? Arguing over whether Beyonce or Adele deserved the best album Grammy? Perhaps they were just trading barbecue recipes?

Context dear readers - context. Flynn and friends were talking to Russian intelligence people in the midst of an election to decide who ascends to the presidency of the United States of America. The Gadfly will wager every last fucking iota of his soul that these conversations were not about the weather, or about the Super Bowl, or the Grammy Awards - and most certainly were not about barbecue recipes.

That only leaves the subject of efforts to getting Mr. Drumpf elected to the highest position in the nation as the most likely topic in these talks - and which then begs the blatantly obvious question - who promised who what, and what did Drumpf know and when did he know it.

If you are one of The Gadfly's conservative friends or family members who was chanting in unison with Flynn and Drumpf and their supporters to "lock her (Hillary) up", and yet you are not at all interested in getting to the bottom of the Russian connections deal with Drumpf and his people -- well then The Gadfly has no regrets at all in telling you to your face - you are a fucking phony hypocrite and your claims of your love of country and the integrity of your patriotism aren't worth a paper bag full of warm dog shit and spit.

Having stated that view - you Drumpf defenders can redeem your patriotism -- join with The Gadfly to demand that an independent, bipartisan counsel be appointed, with an unlimited budget and freedom to take the investigation to whatever ends there be. That is the only way Americans like The Gadfly will be able to feel safe knowing that their leaders have not sold out our democratic republic down the river to a democracy hating, communist dictatorship.

Tuesday, February 14, 2017

What did the president know and when did he know it?02/14/2017 05:46 am ET

WASHINGTON ― National Security Adviser Michael Flynn is gone ― that didn’t take long ― but he leaves behind a famous and fateful question: What did the president know and when did he know it?

Donald J. Trump has been president for less than a month, and already the Watergate query is all the capital is talking about, and, as a result, there is a widespread sense of a White House in deep, perhaps cataclysmic, trouble.The list of failures and missteps of the Trump administration is as well known as it is long: a litany of patently obvious lies to the public and the press; mismanagement and vicious infighting; several malodorous Cabinet choices; mixed messages from on high, many of them coming within minutes of each other; leaks that gush like a fire hydrant; national security lapses that would be comical if they were not so risky; and a job approval rating lower at this point than that of any new president in memory.

But all of that is as nothing compared with the conflagration now.Flynn resigned after it became clear that federal investigators and the national media were closing in on his close relationship ― bought and paid for, it appears ― with Vladimir Putin and his henchmen in Moscow.

And yes goddamn it -- the American people deserve to know what Drumpf knew about Flynn's treason and when did he know it. Remember -- these are the same fucking people who were leading the chants of "lock her up" over Hillary's manufactured email pseudo-scandal.

And before we allow Drumpf to run to Fox "News" (still not a real news organization) and cry on national tv about how the "fake" news media is being unfair to him and that he has never had any dealings with the communist KGB agent turned Russian dictator Vladimir Putin, just keep this 2013 video that resurfaced recently in mind:

The exact quote when asked directly if he had any form of relationship with Vladimir Putin that would grant him influence with the Russian government, Drumpf responded:

❝I do have a relationship - and I can tell you he's very interested in what we do here today. He's probably very interested in what you and I are saying today and I'm sure he's going to be seeing it in some form, but I do have a relationship with him and I think it's, ah, very interesting to see what's happened. I mean look - he's done a very brilliant job in terms of what he represents and who he's representing. If you look at what he's done with Syria, if you look at so many of the different things, he has really eaten our President's (Obama's) lunch. Let's not kid ourselves, he's done an amazing job. He's put himself, really, as you know, a lot of people would say, that he's put himself at the forefront of the world as a leader in a short period of time. Putin has done an amazing job of showing certain leadership that our people (Americans) have not been able to match.❞

That interview was from 2013, before Drumpf had announced his candidacy for the Presidency.

He was practically slobbering on Putin's cock in effusive praise of the murdering thug.

Call The Gadfly nosy if you must, but The Gadfly really, really wants to know just whose fucking side all of the Drumpf people are really on. And if Jason Chaffetz and the Republican party refuse to look in to this, which in The Gadfly's view makes them accomplices to the suspected treason, then We The People need to shove their lame asses aside so that we can get to the bottom of this mess ourselves and get the truth out to the American public.

Saturday, February 11, 2017

This guy really is psychologically unhinged and how people who claim to truly care about this country's future can fail to acknowledge that is just fucking unfathomable to The Gadfly:

By ELI STOKOLS 02/10/17 02:35 PM EST Updated 02/10/17 05:30 PM EST

President Donald Trump can’t stop—won’t stop—talking about the election.

On Thursday, during a meeting with 10 senators that was billed as a listening session about Supreme Court nominee Neil Gorsuch, the president went off on a familiar tangent, suggesting again that he was a victim of widespread voter fraud, despite the fact that he won the presidential election.

As soon as the door closed and the reporters allowed to observe for a few minutes had been ushered out, Trump began to talk about the election, participants said, triggered by the presence of former New Hampshire Sen. Kelly Ayotte, who lost her reelection bid in November and is now working for Trump as a Capitol Hill liaison, or “Sherpa,” on the Supreme Court nomination of Judge Neil Gorsuch.

The president claimed that he and Ayotte both would have been victorious in the Granite State if not for the “thousands” of people who were “brought in on buses” from neighboring Massachusetts to “illegally” vote in New Hampshire.

According to one participant who described the meeting, “an uncomfortable silence” momentarily overtook the room.

So apparently Drumpf has utterly convinced his self that he lost the very small state of New Hampshire's 4 electoral votes because, in his schizoid mind, Hillary and the Democrats "brought in on buses" unidentified hordes of people from outside of New Hampshire to criminally cast "thousands" of illegal votes against him.

Umm yeah -- so all of you New Hampsherites who were wondering what that massive convoy of buses with blacked out windows accompanied by a low flying escort of black helicopters streaming across the border from Massachusetts on election day was all about -- well, there's your answer.

No wonder there was "uncomfortable silence" in that room full of senators -- it was that abstract moment of lucidity that occurs when you get on a public bus or train and suddenly realize that the guy you just sat down next to is the serial killer escapee from a mental hospital whose face you saw plastered all over the morning's news shows. Ya' know what The Gadfly means?

Suffice to say dear readers, it really is just a matter of when and how Drumpf's fantasy empire of his mind's own fabrication collapses in on itself. And all that will remain to be seen is what the method of extracting him from the White House will be, and how far Drumpf's equally loony supporter will take their jihadi-like militancy in opposing an action that even many of them know at their core is best for the nation.

Oh -- and btw -- when that extraction day comes, they're going to need an adjoining padded room suite for this demented freak:

Steve Bannon Believes The Apocalypse Is Coming And War Is Inevitable

Trump’s top adviser thinks we’re in “the great Fourth Turning in American history.”

That would be an aerial view photograph of one of several ravaged American communities near New Orleans, Louisiana. The New Orleans area was battered by half a dozen tornadoes on Tuesday of this week which prompted their Governor to declare a state of emergency.

Go ahead and click on the link to read the article and then tell The Gadfly what is missing from that article. Never mind - The Gadfly will tell you. In the article there is no mention whatsoever of our sitting President Drumpf. No mention of what actions he might be taking to help the state of Louisiana with offers of federal disaster relief assistance. No public statements from him offering condolences or pledges of moral and financial support to the citizens of New Orleans for their losses and suffering. Nothing, nada, zilch. Drumpf's name appears absolutely nowhere in the article.

Now - The Gadfly thought - well - perhaps it's just this one media outlet. Uh-uh. The Gadfly checked various other media outlets including the local New Orleans website Nola.com -- nothing at all from Drumpf. The Gadfly finally did finally track down a single, brief report from a local Fox outlet which said that Drumpf's press secretary Sean Spicer unceremoniously stated Drumpf was "aware" of the situation. But no statements directly from Drumpf his self.

But you want to know what horrifying event that Drumpf did have time to promptly take to the public airwaves about the past few days? This:

WASHINGTON -- Ivanka Trump’s fashion line has suffered a setback. And boy is Dad mad.

President Trump took to Twitter on Wednesdayto complain that his daughter has been "treated so unfairly" by the Nordstrom (JWN) department store chain, which says it will no longer carry her fashion line.

A major American metropolitan area suffers a deadly and destructive natural disaster and our great leader and President cannot find the time to address the American public, much less barely acknowledge the terrible event and it's victims, but boy, he sure does have time to jump on Twitter and run to the media to throw a bitch and moan tantrum about his grown, multimillionaire daughter's business affairs. Meanwhile, a lot of New Orleans citizens are digging through the carnage of their city just trying to recover remnants of their shattered lives.

This is the petulant, callous man-child who is now our president. This is the soulless asshole whom a great many other soulless assholes in this country voted to be the leader of the free world. This is the sonofabitch who will be America's version of the Roman Emperor Nero -- fiddling away while his empire burns.

Thursday, February 9, 2017

Putin using the power of his position and the state to destroy an opposition political candidate:

By Alexander Reshetnikov and Maria Tsvetkova | KIROV/MOSCOW, RUSSIA

Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny accused the Kremlin of trying to block him from running in next year's presidential election after a court on Wednesday found him guilty of embezzlement.

Navalny, who has made a name for himself exposing official corruption, said he would still stand for president, but it was not immediately clear if that was legally possible.

The court, in the provincial city of Kirov, found Navalny guilty of embezzlement in relation to a timber firm called Kirovles, and gave him a five-year suspended prison sentence. Navalny denies wrongdoing.

"What we are seeing now is a sort of telegram sent from the Kremlin, saying that they believe that I, my team, and the people whose views I voice, are too dangerous to allow us to take part in the election campaign," Navalny said.

"We don't recognize this ruling. I have every right to take part in the election according to the constitution and I will do so," he told reporters in the court room, moments after the sentence was handed down.

Here is a "fake" Republican and "fake" General stating that which has been obvious to dirty old liberal fucking hippie's like The Gadfly for -- well -- since forever:

Retired General Barry McCaffrey speaks for a lot of Republicans and military staff who might not have as much professional room (He is, after all, retired.) to speak their minds.

HALLIE JACKSON, MSNBC: President Trump's relationship with Vladimir Putin is really back in the headlines in a big way. You heard what he said about Putin and Bill O'Reilly's comments that Putin is a killer, something of course that Vladimir Putin has denied. How concerned are you about not just with what the president is saying but the relationship that that means the U.S. is going to have with Russia, where that's going to go from here?

RET. GEN. BARRY McCAFFREY: Hallie, I'm actually incredulous that the president would make a statement like that. One could argue that's the most anti-American statement ever made by the President of the United States, to confuse American values with Putin, who is running a criminal oligarchy, who kills people abroad and at home, who imprisons journalists and takes away business property, who shares it with his former KGB agents, who invades and seizes Crimea in eastern Ukraine, this is an astonishing state of affairs. It's hard to know what to think about it.

A West Point graduate, highly decorated combat soldier General and genuine hero is saying that Drumpf's behavior is "an astonishing state of affairs." Let that sink in for a bit.

The Gadfly said from the beginning that it was a bad idea for fence sitter voters to vote for this assclown Drumpf, but you all didn't listen. Well - you better batten down the hatches, because this constitutional political storm is still in the infancy development stages and it can only get uglier and more dangerous from here out. And let's not sugarcoat this situation -- at some point we may need to start thinking about this:

Drumpf's tenacious refusal to acknowledge that Vladimir Putin is a murdering thug dictator is nothing short of fascinating - in a horrifying sort of way. And now that he's defending Putin by comparing America to the Russian dictator and his communist cabal --- well --- where do you go from there?

The Gadfly will tell you this dear readers -- whatever blackmail goods Vlad has on Drumpf must be pretty fucking good to have him blurting out in a nationally televised interview -- on the right wing's favorite "news" channel no less -- that America is no better than communist Russia.

It's pretty clear at this point that there is going to be a price to pay for allowing the idiots of this country to get their way with shoving Drumpf to the top of the political food chain. All that really remains to be seen is just how steep that price is going to be.

Saturday, February 4, 2017

It really was just a matter of time before they started to turn on their own:

Republican lawmakers in Hawaii have reportedly booted state Rep. Beth Fukumoto (R) out of her position as House Minority Leader because she participated in the Women’s March against President Donald Trump.

Fukumoto told KHON that she was bullied by her colleagues and is now considering switching parties.

“The Republican Party is getting increasingly hostile to different opinions,” she explained. “If you followed what happened at the state convention (in May 2016), I got booed for about 10 minutes straight for raising concerns about President Trump, then nominee Trump, and the way he treated women and minorities in many of his remarks. I, at the time, had said this is not, this should not reflect our party.”

Fukumoto said she “repeated those sentiments at the Women’s March last week.”

“And since then, there have been many calls for my resignation, and my caucus members have raised concerns about whether or not that means I’m a Republican, whether or not that means I’m fit for leadership, whether or not that means I should even be an elected official.”

In an address on the state House floor, Fukumoto revealed that Republicans had asked her to agree to never criticize Trump again.

“They told me they would keep me in this position if I would commit to not disagreeing with our president for the remainder of his term. Mr. Speaker, I’m being removed because I refused to make that commitment, because I believe it’s our job as Americans and as leaders in this body to criticize power when power is wrong.”

So basically this Republican congresswoman is being stripped of her party leadership position for the sole reason that she dared to have and express her very own opinions about Dear Leader's demagoguery and that she participated in a march for women's rights, because you know - being a woman and all - that would be a treasonous act. It looks like Beth Fukumoto has thus learned her lesson as to the meaning of being a Retrumplican party member in good standing.

There is no doubt that President* Trumpelthinskin has got his Stasiapparatchiks vigilantly and clandestinely monitoring the words and actions of the party rank and file and has directed them to take notes and add names to their black book dossier on whom they believe to be loyalists to Dear Leader and more specifically, who isn't.

But that is one of the core tenets of this modern day conservative movement -- party and ideology before country, loyalty to dear leader before loyalty to the nation, to the constitution and to the American people's best interests.

The wise and sober words of Theodore Roosevelt ring hollow in these people's ears:

[ click pic to enlarge ]

Just more evidence pointing toward the likelihood that this sordid Drumpf experiment will not end well for most Americans.

“I bet it’s brand-new information to people that President Obama had a six-month ban on the Iraqi refugee program after two Iraqis came here to this country, were radicalized and were the masterminds behind the Bowling Green massacre. Most people don’t know that because it didn’t get covered.”

It also never happened.

Conway, who last month described the Trump administration’s spin as “alternative facts,” appears to be referring to an incident in 2011 when two Iraqi refugees were arrested in Bowling Green, Kentucky. Mohanad Shareef Hammadi and Waad Ramadan Alwan believed they were sending money and weapons to al Qaeda in Iraq when in fact, they were caught in an FBI sting operation.

While Hammadi and Alwan were convicted in 2013 of terrorism and are currently imprisoned, there was no massacre in Bowling Green nor were they accused of planning or attempting one.

Now, now dear readers, don't rush to judgement here on poor Kellyanne. In fact, in her defense, The Gadfly, with a little Google snooping, just may have found video evidence of the infamous "Bowling Green Massacre" that Dear Kellyanne remembers to have occurred. Check out the video evidence:

Well -- you have to admit, it is "Bowling" of some sort, the water looks to be of a "Green" tint and it does appear that there were human casualties inflicted. And there you have it -- Kellyanne Conway's "Bowling Green Massacre."

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The bigger story here isn't Conway's epic and daffy fail at employing raw, manufactured propaganda to support Dear Leader's agenda, it's really about how if it isn't clear by now that America is being led by a bunch of mentally unstable lying sociopaths and nobody seems to care -- well then we truly deserve whatever catastrophe these clowns have in store for us then don't we?

Thursday, February 2, 2017

Trump administration refuses to put officials on air on the network the president called 'fake news.'

01/31/17 06:16 PM EST

The White House has refused to send its spokespeople or surrogates onto CNN shows, effectively icing out the network from on-air administration voices.

“We’re sending surrogates to places where we think it makes sense to promote our agenda,” said a White House official, acknowledging that CNN is not such a place, but adding that the ban is not permanent.

A CNN reporter, speaking on background, was more blunt: The White House is trying to punish the network and force down its ratings.

First - it's the perfect Karmic payback to CNN president Jeff Zucker, whose news network, more than any other, including Fux Noize (who are still not a "News" organization), groveled on their knees for Drumpf, giving the short-fingered vulgarian Orangutan gobs and gobs of free air time during the campaign to spew his inanities and "alternative facts" that mostly went unchallenged. A good stab in the back from the likes of a sleazy charlatan like Drumpf, in a sane world, would be a badge of honor to any legitimate news organization with an ounce of integrity. However, The Gadfly has yet to see any evidence that CNN is ready to atone for it's journalistic sins and will accept, much less wear such a badge with any semblance of pride.

Secondly - it provides yet more evidence that the thin-skinned Drumpfanistas are working hard at keeping a tight lid on information about their skulking, democracy-hating ambitions from the American public when they signal that they intend to work with only like-minded media outlets who are open to helping President Drumpf and VP Bannon "promote their agenda," which in hewing closely to the game plan of their behavior so far, falls right in line with precisely what your typical authoritarian strongman led government would do.

Lastly - with the Drumpfanistas banning their Baghdad Bob spokestoads from talking to CNN, it is just one less major news outlet where they will be spewing their alt-right deceit and democracy-hating vitriol over the public airwaves. In fact - here's some advice to the other tv and cable news organizations out there (not including Fox since they don't qualify as a "News" org). Ban Drumpf and his propagandists from appearing on any of your networks until further notice (except Fox - they're already on the Drumpf Ministry of Propaganda payroll). Simply report on what the administration is saying and doing, give straight up news reports to the American people without the accompanying lies and deception from their dissembling mouthpieces and let the viewers decide for themselves how they wish to receive and process that news. Allow Fux Noize to be the sole outlet for the Drumpf propaganda since they are already playing that role quite nicely and they are quite good at it. Having the Drumpfanistas reduced to only being able to peddle their lies in the wingnut bubble on Fox at minimum serves the purpose of keeping their lying confined to a much more diminished segment of the news media universe.

As we move forward here in the era of Generalissimo Drumpf -- let's keep this list at the forefront of our discourse - it will become a handy reference guide:

Political scientist Dr. Lawrence Britt recently wrote an article about fascism ("Fascism Anyone?," Free Inquiry, Spring 2003, page 20). Studying the fascist regimes of Hitler (Germany), Mussolini (Italy), Franco (Spain), Suharto (Indonesia), and Pinochet (Chile), Dr. Britt found they all had 14 elements in common. He calls these the identifying characteristics of fascism. The excerpt is in accordance with the magazine's policy.

The 14 characteristics are:

The List:

Powerful and Continuing NationalismFascist regimes tend to make constant use of patriotic mottos, slogans, symbols, songs, and other paraphernalia. Flags are seen everywhere, as are flag symbols on clothing and in public displays.

Disdain for the Recognition of Human RightsBecause of fear of enemies and the need for security, the people in fascist regimes are persuaded that human rights can be ignored in certain cases because of "need." The people tend to look the other way or even approve of torture, summary executions, assassinations, long incarcerations of prisoners, etc.

Identification of Enemies/Scapegoats as a Unifying CauseThe people are rallied into a unifying patriotic frenzy over the need to eliminate a perceived common threat or foe: racial , ethnic or religious minorities; liberals; communists; socialists, terrorists, etc.

Supremacy of the MilitaryEven when there are widespread domestic problems, the military is given a disproportionate amount of government funding, and the domestic agenda is neglected. Soldiers and military service are glamorized.

Rampant SexismThe governments of fascist nations tend to be almost exclusively male-dominated. Under fascist regimes, traditional gender roles are made more rigid. Opposition to abortion is high, as is homophobia and anti-gay legislation and national policy.

Controlled Mass MediaSometimes to media is directly controlled by the government, but in other cases, the media is indirectly controlled by government regulation, or sympathetic media spokespeople and executives. Censorship, especially in war time, is very common.

Obsession with National SecurityFear is used as a motivational tool by the government over the masses.

Religion and Government are IntertwinedGovernments in fascist nations tend to use the most common religion in the nation as a tool to manipulate public opinion. Religious rhetoric and terminology is common from government leaders, even when the major tenets of the religion are diametrically opposed to the government's policies or actions.

Corporate Power is ProtectedThe industrial and business aristocracy of a fascist nation often are the ones who put the government leaders into power, creating a mutually beneficial business/government relationship and power elite.

Labor Power is SuppressedBecause the organizing power of labor is the only real threat to a fascist government, labor unions are either eliminated entirely, or are severely suppressed .

Disdain for Intellectuals and the ArtsFascist nations tend to promote and tolerate open hostility to higher education, and academia. It is not uncommon for professors and other academics to be censored or even arrested. Free expression in the arts is openly attacked, and governments often refuse to fund the arts.

Obsession with Crime and PunishmentUnder fascist regimes, the police are given almost limitless power to enforce laws. The people are often willing to overlook police abuses and even forego civil liberties in the name of patriotism. There is often a national police force with virtually unlimited power in fascist nations.

Rampant Cronyism and CorruptionFascist regimes almost always are governed by groups of friends and associates who appoint each other to government positions and use governmental power and authority to protect their friends from accountability. It is not uncommon in fascist regimes for national resources and even treasures to be appropriated or even outright stolen by government leaders.

Fraudulent ElectionsSometimes elections in fascist nations are a complete sham. Other times elections are manipulated by smear campaigns against or even assassination of opposition candidates, use of legislation to control voting numbers or political district boundaries, and manipulation of the media. Fascist nations also typically use their judiciaries to manipulate or control elections.

Sad but truthful to say, there aren't many traits on that list that are not already traits of Drumpf and his gang of blackshirts. Every day that passes observing the actions of Drumpf and his minions, The Gadfly becomes increasingly convinced that this sordid episode in our young democracy does not end well for many.